Pub. 12 2017-2018 Issue 6

NEBRASKA BANKERS ASSOCIATION 25 WALENTINE O’TOOLE, LLP When time is of the essence, experience counts. Walentine O’Toole blends confidence, experience and knowledge with the personal attention you can expect from a regional law firm. www.w alentineotoole .com 402.330.6300 11240 Davenport St . • Omaha, NE 68154-0125 determine who is an owner and if anyone owns at least 25 percent of the business. For a sole member LLC, for example, one person owns 100 percent of the company, so you would need to obtain that individu- al’s verification documents. On the other hand, if you have a company owned by 10 people, all owning at least 10 percent of the company, none of those owners wouldmeet this ownership requirement. In addition to the owners, you need one person who can control or manage the business, for example, a CEO, CFO, or COO. It doesn’t matter who it is as long as they can control the company. You can rely on the information the customer gives you regarding this role. You could be collecting information on up to five individuals: up to four owners who own at least 25 percent plus one controlling owner. If no one owns at least 25 percent of the entity, youwill just collect information on that controlling or managing owner. Under this rule, you will have to collect on one to five people, total. That’s simple enough when the direct owners are natural people, but what if the beneficial owner is a trust or another com- pany?For a trust that owns at least 25percent of a legal entity, you’re simply going to get the CIP-like information from the trustee. For a legal entity that owns a legal entity, you need todetermine if anynatural person individual owns at least 25 percent of your legal entity customer. For example, if your legal entity is 100 percent owned by an LLC and that LLC is owned by two people, they indirectly own 50 percent of your legal entity customer and youwould get the CIP-like information from each of them. Step 3: FromWhom Do I Obtain the Ownership Information? The beneficial ownership information— who the owners are, how much they own, who is in charge—should be given to you by the person opening the account. Does that mean a beneficial owner has to open the ac- count?No, thepersonwhohasbeengiven the right toopen the account by the company can provideyou this information. Thatmeans the personopening theaccountmayverywell not be one of the five people onwhomyou’re col- lecting thebeneficial ownership information. Step 4: What Must I Collect? What you’re collecting on each indi- vidual is very similar to CIP information: In addition to the owners, you need one person who can control or manage the business, for example, a CEO, CFO, or COO. name and title of the individual, name and address of the business, date of birth, and Social Security numbers for U.S. citizens and passport numbers for non-citizens. Unlike CIP, however, you can accept cop- ies of those documents as verification instead of the actual ID. So that means the person opening the account can come prepared with that information. Step 5: HowDo I Collect It? Amodel certification form is inAppen- dix A to 31 CFR 1010.230, which your cus- tomers can use to identify those beneficial owner individuals—basically, it allows the customer to list up to four beneficial owners and the single individual who is listed as controlling the company. You can Beneficial Ownership —continuedonpage26